Try guessing the title to Toronto–based jazz bassist Roberto Occhipinti’s fourth album while listening to the album’s free-flowing melodies and luscious harmonies. The liquid tone of the brass section, the eddies of strings and woodwinds that curl within the core ensemble’s choppy rhythmic cross-currents—how could the title not involve water somehow? After many years playing in classical ensembles, Occhipinti made his name as the rhythmic pinion for such esteemed Latin jazz groups as Hilario Duran’s trio and Jane Bunnett’s Spirits of Havana. He also produced David Buchbinder’s multiculti watershed, Odessa/Havana, and impressed Blur/Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn enough to tour with Gorillaz and the Mali Music project. Occhipinti brings his diverse background to bear on A Bend in the River, a stimulating collection of standards and originals whose complexity are deepened by the inclusion of both jazz and classical instrumentation. Let the current whisk you away.

Is it an accident that an album called A Bend in the River should be so well-described as "Third Stream," a genre tag used to describe the fusion of jazz and classical music? Whether serendipitous or intentional, it’s appropriate since the album just flows. The overlapping fugal dance that opens "Umbria" represents A Bend in the River’s first few trickles; they’ll eventually coalesce into a rushing melodic statement, taken up by Luis Deniz’s alto sax. The Latin syncopations of pianist David Virelles dip in and out of the pooling long tones of the strings, while Occhipinti and drummer Dafnis Prieto keep the whole thing rushing forward, keeping a steady current while playfully splashing around.

Occhipinti’s cover of the immortal John Coltrane ballad "Naima" evokes a very different watery image. The arrangement strands Occhipinti’s bass in the middle of a slowly swaying sea of orchestral strings, like some lonely buoy floating in a dusky harbor. Strings also bathe the succession of inspired solos on "Marta," as ravishing a jazz composition as they come. Midway through, Occhipinti plays Moses and parts the ocean of strings to allow himself and Virelles room to shine. The real treat is the volcanic explosion from Pietro toward the track’s end, played over a slow cha-cha rhythm as if he’s paddling furiously to dry land. Occhipinti and company get there, and we’re left slack-jawed and amazed in his wake.